Inspiration

This is the month of garden dreams and plans, a month of creativity while waiting for May's plantings It's also the month of clean up, but for now .. I'm in full-on planning mode. I'm  trying to think of what I want to do to my pots this year.  I went cruising the aisles of my friendly neighborhood internet for DIY projects ... and I thought I'd share with you.

It would seem that I'm a fan of polka dots, especially in combination with other things. Good thing this isn't clothing - I won't be caught within a mile of polka dots.

 We'll see how things eventually work themselves out, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see some sort of dottish thing going on. As for colors, I think I've settled on a combination that is inspired by some dinner plates my Granny had when I was a kid. It'll be better on the pots, I  promise!

I'll post results as I have them.

Star of Christmas

My baking sheets have seen a lot of action these past six weeks, very likely as much as in the previous 10 and a half months.  I've reacquainted myself with the location of most of my cooking apparatus, with the exception of the still long-lost coffee grinder.

Like cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, the flavor of licorice is inextricably tied to Christmas for me. This is the time of year my mother indulged her love of licorice allsorts, an affection I believe she shared with her father and passed along to me.  I'm not a fan of bags of licorice, knowing that I'll be the only one consuming it.  Oh, I can do it ... but its better if I don't.

In conversation with Cécile the other day, I mentioned that I'd like to try my hand at making some sort of licorice cookies since cookies had kinda been 'my thing' this year.  She had some fresh star of anise that she dug out of her spice drawer ... and so, here we are.

The recipe for Star of Anise cookies comes from The Messy Witchen and I think I have to agree with her when she says "yummy."  They actually looked so good that I didn't mind making the ground star of anise or caster sugar.  What I did mind was that the recipe was in metric grams that I needed to convert to Canadian cups.  The kitchen scale that normally sees use for diet measures - and otherwise sits forgotten in a dark cupboard recess - came in very handy today.

The end result?  These cookies were worth the extra fuss.  I dyed them blue and added the white sprinkles for a snowball effect.  Blue food may look strange, but it's delicious.  I can't wait to share them with my friends.

It's Christmas Eve .. that means we're about to sit down to the annual showing of Alastair Sim in "A Christmas Carol."

Have a great festive meal everyone!

Christmas napkin craft ...

I just had to go and ask Bruce for Christmas napkins for our dinner.

A snowgnome in a snowstorm

Creative genius strikes again!

Slow down and smell the peppermint

This is how my day started ... Bruce and I made refrigerator cookies yesterday, rolled out the dough (flour everywhere, oh my!) and got these pinwheels ready for morning baking.  The green are peppermint flavor and the red are cherry pinwheels.

These will go into gifts for those people we see all year who do nice things for us .. chiropractor, my stylist, our dental office.  And of course some for friends :)

Gabriola Thanksgiving Artwalk

Thought I'd share a few pictures with you of our trek around Galiano Island.  I've already shared our experience with Bruce's allergies, but notwithstanding, we had a great time!

This piece was on display .. not for sale ... at one of the artist's studios.

We grabbed a coffee first thing when we landed on the island .. this was the first work of  art
that Bruce and Richard enjoyed.  It was in the parking lot beside the coffee shop.
You can see why boys fall in love with chrome on their vehicles.

The Dorothy, viewed from the wee loft in the workshop.  To the right, you can see the original
painting of the artcard I purchased, below.

 The Dorothy is Canada's oldest sailboat and she's being loving restored in the workshop of Art Grove. To see the full story and perhaps contribute to the documentary being shot during the restoration process, you can head over to dorothysails.com.  Under the stern of the boat was an area where a young Gabriolan entrepreneur was selling taste samples of his island-crafted beer and brewing up some return business.  Richard tried a porter and while I stuck with a more traditional amber.

I loved the bright orange on this boat and the simple style of the painting.

Céc was looking for a purse that she'd seen at another fair.   None of these came home with us
but the artist was generous in letting me take a picture of the colorful display.

Outside the studio of an artist whose work was done with a shopvac (I kid you not),
we ran into a delightful garden with a variety of little outdoor rooms

Lunch at Drumbeg Provincial Park.  Cécile packed a picnic!
At least, I think its Drumbeg .. could be Sandwell for all I know.  Have I mentioned I get lost
when someone else navigates?

Loved the front of this old van almost as much as the pontiac at the top.
Seems to me this old van could tell stories.  I'm still not sure what color it really is.

There's something about boobs that make men go silly.
These two are about to burst into a 12-year-old giggle fit.

Moonlight Serenade

I connected with my art program today .. hope you enjoy!

Seasonal decorations

My chiroptractor's office decorations .. well done, don't you think?

It's been a while ...

Before I pelted through our yellow front door yesterday to jump into my car, I'd scrounged through a batch of boxes marked "office" that are in the storage room and had managed to dig up my set of pencils.  The grade school lime green case makes me smile when I see it because I know the friends that are waiting inside.  I briefly searched for my coloured pencils, but gave that up because I was a bit late, having forgotten the date I'd set.  Thank you, my husband who often reminds me of things I can remember quite well on my own, thank you very much anyway.  In this case, however, it was a good thing he did.  I was having one of those "I know I'm supposed to be somewhere" days, but thought it was for my workout that was getting pushed back farther into the day as I sat at my computer and got lost in time, as I often do.

Cécile and I sat down at her big teak dining room table where we'd planned to spend the afternoon drawing a still life. She set up a beautiful stargazer lily and then wandered off into her artroom, coming back with treasure after treasure in the form of art media.  I settled down with a cup of herbal tea and my pencils, but before the first half hour was out, my fingers were covered with pink chalk.

Four hours later, the result was this piece of work.  As it goes, its got a batch of faults, but I'm happy to have my hand back and having produced a semi-respectable piece.  As a starter piece to remembering my art, its acceptable and I'm happy.

Labour of Love?

Deep in my bones I know that Labour Day is all about taking time off from your labours to enjoy friends and family.  So why did I go crazy and buy paint and brushes?  No idea, but I like the results!

Before

After

I thought this would be simple.  Pop the door off, paint it a couple of times, let it dry all day .. put it back on and you know .. Bob's your uncle.  It was a long day to do two doors and their trim, starting with washing and rinsing and getting garage and drop cloths ready.  Ending with fiddling around with  reluctant handles and hinges that during the day became like two depolarized magnets.

The back door took only two coats, but this front one took five.

Two more doors to go, only one with trim, so it should go faster.  Famous last words right there, folks.

On Dr. Suess

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

♦♦♦

I'm fairly certain Dr. Suess found inspiration in ordinary things.  Here are three pictures of my dogwood tree.  Can you see how a pencil in the hand of a permanent child can find a jumping off point for a story?

See??

A bottle fit for a djinn

Remember when I said that occasionally we find the magic around us?  Case in point is this photo below.  A late afternoon visit to the downstairs washroom resulted in this amazing picture.  

Both bottles come complete with cork stoppers so if any friendly djinn would like to visit .. we have a comfy hotel suite ready for them.  

May update

If it seems like its been forever since I posted ... well .. umm .. guilty as charged.  I have been keeping myself out of trouble, however.

I've devised a paddling program for the Kruisers dragon boat team and have been coaching twice a week since mid-May. Poor ladies went out in the pouring rain last week; fortunately it was warm.  I stayed under my rain poncho and kept warm and dry .. until we docked and I stepped into the middle of the boat to give some specific technique demonstrations and went ankle deep in the collected rain water. I helped design their new shirts and am  hoping they turn out as well as the design suggests the should.

The pinkish lines are size cut marks for the garment maker,
Hayman Sport out of Penticton

Kristen and Bruce watching me in the garden with my camera

Kristen came calling on us and brought a toy for the cats, which they promptly demolished .. with much glee and gusto.  Occasionally it rolls out from under some piece of furniture and becomes a prized possession for another couple of days until it's lost again.

Knitting seems like an Olympic sport to Mr. Tippy.  He seems pretty convinced he could do it better
than Kristen, even though she demonstrates her prowess pretty convincingly with that
pink hooded vest she's wearing.  

Other than that, I've been busy moving dirt and stuff around in my garden .. more so in May than in June .. although I did score a few flats of annuals before the May long weekend.  Here's a rundown of what was going on in May ...

The papery qualities of the birch and star magnolia make for
an interesting early May statement

Bruce and Kristen (on the patio above) caught me taking this photo.  I've since moved my
lily garden into the spot just behind the pink heather .. looking forward to some great
July or August pictures.

The wisteria seems happy enough.  Maybe one of these years it will actually bloom.

I was surpirsed (and delighted) when the bleeding heart on the front step
fought its way back from winter hibernation

Proof.  Wasps *are* actually herbivores in the spring.
I was taking a picture of the pieris flowers when this little
fellow photo-bombed me.

This friendly feline guards the front gardens.

Where have you been all month?

Like a toy boat caught in the eddies of a stream and carried away, February seems to have meandered out to ocean without a blog post.  I've been right here all along, slogging through the month and staying out of trouble. This winter seems to have caught me at a creative low and rather than force things, I thought I'd see if my muse would come tripping along in a gossamer gown with her fairydust wand.

Sadly, not so.  I've pretty much been up to the same thing that folks elsewhere have been doing ... catching up on episodes of Castle (I should start a Nathan Fillion fanclub chapter here) .. and becoming an NCIS fan where the interplay and personal cultural clashes of Mark Harmon, Pauly Perette, and David McCallum make for interesting watching.  Ilya Kuryakin has apparently not managed to get too far out of the spy business.  If you don't know what I mean by that, Google up "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." or follow this elegant and finely crafted link.

I've also been dieting, with more success in January than February, I'm afraid.  Not for lack of trying though, and after a couple of days dealing with frustration by saying "screw it," I'm back on plan.

Good news, potentially.  Spoke with Margie and she may be visiting in March, right around the time that Bruce and his crew are in a regatta here in town.  Could be fun!

The doo-daddies on the this month's masthead were created by me.  I used to make these all the time for my desktop, so I decided to do up one for this month's theme .. which started out as shamrocks .. and somehow along the way morphed into a tulip.  We've got a few early spring flowers poking out of the ground, looking all inviting for the local deer, so we'll see how many make it past the bud stage.  Anyway, here's a larger version in case you'd like to make a desktop of it as well.

Edit:  A small note to those who may collect the fonts I use.  Normally, you can find a link at the bottom of the page for all the fonts I`ve used in designing each month. This month, however, I am stymied .. the one called `Birthday`(appearing in the header as the word òf`  and in column headers inside the page footer) comes from a font group to which I belong .. and I cannot find a copy online.  This leads me to believe that the font has been renamed at some point (not by me), so I`ll have to repair that (I have the tools!)  However, if you wish a copy of it, you need only send me a note.

Doodling with Snap Art

When Eric was here, we downloaded a program called Snap Art, which is an addon that goes into my PaintShop Pro program and manipulates images.  I'm terribly impressed with it and wanted show it off.

One of my favorite photos that I took at Sam and DeeWynn's wedding was of the old blacksmith shop on Ralph's farm.  Here is is.

Original

Watercolor effect

Pointillism

The comic book treatment

Colored Pencils

Oil paints - I think this may be my favorite

Pastels

Watercolor - this is my second favorite

Stylized - I do like this as well

  
I thought I'd see if I could play with a portrait and come up with something I liked.  The picture below is of Kirsten, our neice.  She has an expressive face with strong features and couldn't take a bad picture if she tried.  In all the pictures I've seen her in, she owns the photo, no matter who else was captured by the lens.

This is the original photo - she must have been at some function
where she was required to wear a nametag.

I first removed the nametag, then in Art Shop I added an impasto effect 

Here I've added a duplicate layer and multiplied the
 image onto the original. It creates a more dynamic picture

I wanted more purples and oranges, so I added a couple more
layers; recolored; played with contrast and transparencies.
At that point, the doorframe and light highlight behind her
became as bright as her face, so I simple cropped down the
photo.  It has a sort of chiaroscuro quality I love.

Hope you've enjoyed this little tour through my graphics program today :)  For more on chiaroscuro, follow this handy and finely-crafted link.

Of Dogs and Designs

My dog ate my December website design.

Okay, I don't have a dog.  Nor, at this point, a December website design.  But it's coming, honest!

Warning:  Gamer geekery coming.  Your eyes can light up or glaze over now, depending on your proclivity or aversion for all things Warcrafty.

I've had some wonderful company the past few days.  And a new update to World of Warcraft. These things relate to each other like a finely honed knife and a rogue hidden in the shadows.  <-- see what I did there?  Ha ha!

I've had the pleasure of knowing Eric since I was a green-behind-the-ears hunter and Gruul's Lair was uncharted territory for my guild.  His unfailing good humour was one of the highlight of joint raids with The Oasis Contingent.  (The Oasis Contingent has a history closely tied to the long-running webcomic Sluggy Freelance and I'll introduce you to the Sluggy gang at some point, probably soonish.) Of course, I didn't know him as Eric.  In game, we usually call each other by character name .. which makes for interesting times when people have multiple characters.  It's funny, but you learn to fluidly shift from one name to the next without event thinking about it.  Or, sometimes, like my pal Nick, you just call him Nick, no matter the 'toon he is currently playing.

So I've known Eric over five years now and we've become fast friends, occasionally levelling characters together and just generally making each other's day a bit more fun.  We know how to laugh and mock each other out of bad moods; always a pretty good characteristic of friendship.

I've known Frazer for the last couple of years since he and Eric are good friends.  Frazer has a tendency of disappearing from the scene occasionally, but one day he'll wander back in and pick up like he never left.  He's a delight on my guild forums, where he is known as The Grand  Vizier and Eric as the Comically Inept Henchman.  They run rampantly through my posts like a child with brightly colored crayons and bewitchingly white walls.  Except, like Calvin and Hobbes, they tend to find a way to create a crayon bazooka which they use both rampantly and randomly.

The video below is a find of Frazer's, but it could have easily been Eric who is fascinated by all Lego Mechanical creations - among other things.

So anyway, they were both out in Vancouver for the Grey Cup game and to ogle cheerleaders by the squadful, if the stories I heard are true.  Eric travelled from Quebec to the West Coast and Frazer from Edmonton for the game, so it was inconceivable that they not take a short ferry ride over to Nanaimo to come see me.

I've been preparing for the visit and ignoring the siren lure of my computer.  It wasn't easy, especially since a long anticipated game patch arrived while they were here.  We were all good kids though, and stayed away from Warcraft until after the visit.

I had a great time and feasted them suitably, even going to far as to make that most manly of all breakfasts ... a bacon log.  Frazer got a picture of it I'll have to share with you as soon as he sends it.

Eric helped me out with some computer stuff and I'll have some new goodies to show you soon.  Which brings full circle to the monthly website redesign.  And how I need to do that, like now ...

Wintry presents

It was my birthday a couple of days ago, and for the life of me, I can't think of anything profound to say about the last year or the coming year.  I'll leave resolutions to January, but I do think I'd like to be more physically active than the last year has been.  My svelte physique has gone walkabout and .. I need to catch up to it again.  'Nuff said.

I woke up to our first snowfall of the year and it had mostly disappeared later in the day.  I took some pictures of the backyard and the view from our living room to share with you.  I loved the interplay of sunlight and snow which is a staple of Alberta, but not BC so much.

Isn't this grand? I love the sky behind the trees

A few days ago, I showed you a picture of our Japanese Maple.
Still beautiful, but not quite the same fiery glow.

I have no idea why I like this picture so much, but it makes me smile and feel warm fuzzies inside.

If you look down there in the middle of this picture, you can see a hideaway for small
woodland creatures.  This is what I imagine the denizens of Laughing Brook saw when they
climbed out of their nests, dens, old logs or briar patch on a wintry morn and looked toward
their neighbors for signs of activity.

Ha .. I do get carried away sometimes. 

My husband got carried away and, for my birthday, indulged my spoken-aloud wish earlier this year for a camera with more features.  The one I have is really adequate for a lot of things, but it totally misses the mark on others.  I'm super excited about the camera, which should arrive in store any day now.  The only one they had on hand was the store demo model and no telling how much battery life is left.  The battery on the new camera is something I'm grinning about, since the one taking the pictures above will go through a set of batteries inside of a few hours.  I usually have a pair of AAs stashed about my person somewhere. *grin*  And no, I'm not talking about my boobs.

I have to give the sales rep credit.  He really tried to hit a home run when he saw he had an almost guaranteed sale lined up.  First, it was the Canon Rebel with not just one, but two extra lenses.  I have to admit, I got excited about it for a few minutes.  Then I took a breath and the world shifted back into focus.  (Ha ha .. at the camera store.  I amuse me.) 

Annnnyway, then he suggested I should get one of the new iPhones.  One extreme to the other .. the gent was grasping at the wind .. just couldn't figure out what I wanted, even though I was telling him.  So we nudged him over in the direction of stuff that looked affordable and not too complicated for what I need my camera to do.  He picked up a Canon, but I took one look at the baby below and I was hooked.  I am suuuuch a sucker for a pretty package.  In this case, however, I think I have exactly what I need for my 'next step.'  Looking forward to showing you how the view through the lens looks.